La Mesa Municipal Code Ch. 26.02 Definitions

For the purpose of this ordinance, the following words, terms, phrases, and their derivations shall have the meanings given herein. When not inconsistent with the context, words used in the present tense include the future tense, words in singular number include the plural number. The word "shall" is always mandatory and not merely directory.

(a) "Additional service" means any service not included in "basic service" or "institutional service."

(b) "Agency subscriber" means a subscriber who receives a service in a government or public agency, school, or nonprofit corporation facility.

(c) "Administrative officer" means the city manager or his designee.

(d) "Agreement" means any franchise agreement.

(e) "Attachment point" means the point at which grantee's drop attaches to subscriber-owned equipment.

(f) "Basic service" means the lowest service tier which includes the retransmission of local television broadcast signals.

(g) "Broadcast signal" means the signal of a broadcast television station licensed by the FCC.

(h) "Cable Act" means the Federal Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984.

(i) "Cable communications system" or "system, cable TV system, CATV system," or "Broadband Communications Network" or "network" means a system within the city of La Mesa of antennas, cables, amplifiers, towers, microwave links, cablecasting studios, and any other conductors, converters, terminals, equipment or facilities, designed and constructed for the primary purpose of distributing television programming to subscribers or users, and for the secondary purpose of producing, receiving, amplifying, storing, processing, or distributing audio, video, digital, or other forms of electronic or electrical signals, but not including telephone systems regulated by the public utilities commission.

(j) "Cablecast signal" means a non-broadcast signal of the cable communications system, whether from a live or recorded source.

(k) "Closed circuit" or "institutional service" means services provided to institutional users on an individual or collective basis. The information contained in such a service may or may not be simultaneously available to other system subscribers or users.

(l) "Channel" means a frequency band capable of carrying a standard video signal or some combination of video signals, or a frequency band assigned to carry a non-standard video signal or some combination of such video signals.

(m) "Commercial subscriber" means a subscriber who receives a residential service in a place of business, or anyone whose service is utilized in a business, trade, or profession, including but not limited to hotels, motels, bars, restaurants and other similar establishments.

(n) "Cable usage corporation" or "CUC" means a nonprofit, public corporation, hereinafter further defined, established or authorized by the grantor, whose duties shall include the management and operation of services designated by grantor.

(o) "Complaint" means a billing dispute or service call in which a subscriber is notifying grantee of an outage and/or degradation in picture quality.

(p) "Converter" or "terminal" means a device which converts signals from one frequency to another.

(q) "Downstream channel" means a channel transmitted from the headend to a subscriber.

(r) "Drop" means the cable and related equipment connecting the system's plant to equipment at the subscriber's premises.

(s) "Education channel" means any channel where educational institutions are the primary designated programmers.

(t) "FCC" means the Federal Communications Commission or its designated representative(s).

(u) "Franchise" means a written legal undertaking or action of the grantor which awards permission to a specific named person or entity to use the streets and public ways for the purpose of installing, operating and maintaining a cable communications system.

(v) "Government channel" means any channel where local government agencies are the primary designated programmers.

(w) "Grantee" means the entity to which a franchise is granted for the construction, operation, maintenance, and reconstruction of a cable communications system and the lawful successors, transferees, or assignees of said entity.

(x) "Grantor" means the entity establishing this ordinance for territory within its present and future jurisdiction, its elected governing body, and/or such representative person or entity as it may designate to act on cable communication matters in its behalf.

(y) "Gross annual receipts" or "gross receipts" means all amounts, which are actually received, directly or indirectly, by the grantee from or in connection with the operation of the system within the city; all monthly or otherwise ongoing fees for any form of cable programming, all other service fees, installation, reconnection, and similar fees; fees paid for channels designated for commercial use; converter rentals or sales; facility or equipment rentals other than those not associated with the operation of the system; advertising revenues; and revenue derived from the sale of products advertised or promoted on the system, to the extent such revenue represents payment, in whole or in part, for the use of a channel on the system. Gross annual receipts shall also include the gross revenue of any other person, which is derived directly or indirectly from or in connection with the operation of the system in the city to the extent that said revenue is derived through a means which has the effect of avoiding the payment of franchise fees to the grantor that would otherwise be paid as provided herein. Gross annual receipts shall not include:

(1) The revenue of any person, to the extent that said revenue is also included in gross annual receipts of the grantee.

(2) Taxes, assessments, and fees imposed by law on subscribers, which the grantee is obligated or authorized to collect and which the grantee passes on, in full, to the appropriate governmental entity.

(3) Amounts collected by the grantee from subscribers on behalf of commercial users of public access channel programmers to the extent that said amounts are passed on, in full, by the grantee to said programmers.

(4) Any investment income earned by the grantee.

(5) Bad debt, provided, however, that bad debt recoveries shall be included to the extent such recoveries are related to sources of revenue included as gross annual receipts.

(6) The value of any free service to the extent that actual fees are not paid to the grantee.

(7) The amount of any refunds and rebates made or provided by grantee.

(8) The amount of any refundable deposits on equipment and services collected by grantee, provided, once said amounts are taken into income, they shall become gross annual receipts.

(9) The value of any free service or services authorized or required by this agreement.

(z) "Headend" means that central portion(s) of the system where signals are introduced into and received from the balance of the system.

(aa) "Institutional network" or "institutional system" means a system or portion of a system intended primarily to service nonresidential subscribers.

(bb) "Leased channel" means any channel leased pursuant to Section 612 of the Cable Act.

(cc) "Local origination channel" means any channel where the grantee is the primary designated programmer.

(dd) "Monitoring" or "tapping" means observing or receiving a signal, or in the absence of a signal, where the observer is neither the sending nor receiving party and is not authorized by the sending and/or receiving party to observe said signal, whether the signal is observed or received by visual, electronic, or any other means whatsoever.

(ee) "Non-broadcast signal" means a signal that is not involved in over-the-air broadcast for general public reception.

(ff) "Open channel" means any channel that can be received by all subscribers, without the use of special equipment not normally possessed by, or available to, anyone who may become a subscriber.

(gg) "Pay cable" or "pay service," "premium-service" or "pay television" means signals for which there is a fee or charge to users over and above the charge for any tier of basic service; provided, however, the sale or lease of studio facilities, equipment, and/or tapes to local users shall not be deemed pay or premium services.

(hh) "Plant" means the transmitting medium and related equipment which transmits signals between the headend and subscribers, excluding drops.

(ii) "PEG channel" means a public, education or government channel.

(jj) "Person" means any corporation, partnership, proprietorship, individual or organization authorized to do business in the state of California, or any natural person.

(kk) "Private channel" means any channel carrying material available in intelligible form only to subscribers provided with special equipment to receive such signals and render them intelligible.

(ll) "Program" or "programming" means the information content of a signal and the act or process of creating such content, whether that content is intended to be pictures and sound, sound only, or any other form of information whatsoever.

(mm) "Programmer" means any person or entity who or which provides program material or information for transmission by means of a system.

(nn) "Property of grantee" means all property owned or leased within the franchise area by grantee in the conduct of its system business under a franchise granted hereunder.

(oo) "Public channel," "community service channel" or "community channel" means any channel for which any member of the general public or any community organization may provide programming on a non-discriminatory basis.

(pp) "Resident" means any person residing in the franchised area or as otherwise defined by applicable law.

(qq) "Residential network" means that portion of the cable communication system connected to residential structures within the city.

(rr) "Residential service" means cable service delivered to subscriber on the residential network.

(ss) "Residential subscriber" means a subscriber who receives a service in a dwelling unit, and whose service is not utilized in a business, trade or profession.

(tt) "Section" means any section, subsection, or provision of this ordinance, or of a franchise hereunder.

(uu) "Service outage" means a complete disruption in cable service or a complete disruption in any channel thereof.

(vv) "School" means any public educational institution.

(ww) "System" means the grantor's cable television system within the city.

(xx) "Streets and public ways" means the surface and the space above and below any public street, sidewalk, alley, or other public way or right-of-way of any type whatsoever.

(yy) "Subscriber" means any person or other entity electing to subscribe to, for any purpose, a service provided by grantee by means of or in connection with its cable system.

(zz) "Tier" mean a combination of signals and/or channels for which a specific identifiable price is charged.

(aaa) "Unit" means a discrete place where system services are used, such as a residence, apartment, office, store, etc.

(bbb) "Upstream channel" means a channel transmitted from a subscriber or user's location to the headend.

(ccc) "User(s)" means any person or entity who either receives services from a cable system or who accomplishes any purpose by, in part or in whole, transmitting or receiving information via a cable system, or who creates programming for that purpose, or who receives and uses programming.

(ddd) "Year" means a specific year or part of year referred to, or a full calendar year.

(eee) "Terms not defined." Words, terms, or phrases not defined herein shall first be defined as in the Cable Act and second mean their special meanings or connotations in any industry, business, trade or profession where they commonly carry such special meanings. In the event such special meanings are not common, they shall mean their standard definitions as set forth in commonly used and accepted dictionaries of the English language.

(Ord. 2621 § 1 (part); March 23, 1993)